Never Die Villain

"Is it truly so difficult to keep the books upright, My Lady?"

The stack of books slipped from Anastasiya’s head for what must have been the fifth time that morning, scattering all over the floor before she could even finish walking from one end of the room to the other.

Her instructor caught her wrist before she could reach down to collect them, and the thin wooden switch came down against her skin.

Smack——!

"Ow!"

"Again. A noble lady does not shuffle around with her shoulders hunched and her eyes on the floor. Back straight, chin up, and this time, try not to drop them before you’ve taken ten steps."

Smack——!

"Ow!"

"My Lady, you are a noblewoman, for goodness’ sake! Illiteracy is out of the question!"

Anastasiya stared miserably at the page in front of her, having failed to understand the same passage even after reading it three times. Another wrong answer earned her a sharp smack on the wrist, and she quickly pulled her hand against her chest.

"But I read it!"

"You pronounced the words. That is considerably different from understanding them."

"...That’s unfair."

"Read it again."

Smack——!

"Ow!"

"How many times have I corrected your grip?"

The wooden sword fell from Anastasiya’s fingers and landed on the ground beside her. Her palms were already red from training, and the instructor standing across from her looked increasingly irritated as she bent down to pick it back up.

"My hands hurt..."

"They will hurt considerably more when an enemy cuts them off."

"I don’t want to fight enemies!"

"You are a Belozersky, my Lady."

The sword was pushed back into her hands.

Smack——!

"Ow!"

"Wrong."

Anastasiya stared down at the map spread across the table.

"...This one?"

"Wrong again."

Smack——!

"This one?"

"Lady Anastasiya."

Smack——!

"Ouch! I don’t know!"

She finally dropped the pointer onto the table, her cheeks puffing up as she glared at the seemingly endless collection of borders, rivers, fortresses, and names she was expected to memorize.

Her tutor rubbed his forehead before placing the pointer back into her hand.

"You are expected to inherit these lands someday. You should at least know where they are."

"I never said I wanted them."

"That has nothing to do with it. Again."

"I already did it!"

"And you did it poorly."

Smack——!

"Ow!"

Anastasiya’s legs trembled as she forced herself back into position, sweat running down her forehead despite the winter cold.

She had spent the entire afternoon repeating the same footwork until her knees hurt, yet every attempt earned another correction from the knight overseeing her training.

"Ilya doesn’t have to do this many!"

"Lord Ilya gets it right the first time."

"...."

That answer hurt considerably more than the training stick.

By the time her lessons finally ended, Anastasiya returned to the training yard with red wrists, aching legs, and enough complaints prepared to occupy the rest of the evening.

She found Ilya exactly where she expected him to be, swinging his sword under the setting sun as though repeating the same movement hundreds of times was somehow enjoyable.

"Ilya..."

Her younger brother stopped and looked over.

Anastasiya walked straight toward him without another word and pressed her face against his back, wrapping both arms around him before he could even ask what was wrong.

"...I don’t want to do this anymore."

Her voice came out muffled against his back.

"It hurts, Ilya. It hurts, it hurts... Everything hurts!" Anastasiya squeezed him tighter, no longer caring that she was supposed to be the older one between them. "They hit my hands when I get something wrong, they yell at me when I can’t remember something, and then they make me do it all over again until I get it right. I hate it!"

Ilya lowered his wooden sword.

"...Sister."

"I tried! I really did try today! I tried everything they told me to do, but I’m bad at all of it, and everyone gets angry because I’m supposed to be Father’s daughter!"

Her grip around him tightened again.

"I don’t want to be Grand Duchess! I don’t care about inheriting the North, and I don’t care about being good with a sword!"

She buried her face deeper against him, wiping her tears against the back of his shirt without shame.

"Why can’t they just give it to you?! You’re better at everything they want me to do anyway!"

Ilya said nothing for a while.

He was only six years old in this life, yet the sixteen years that had come before it made it difficult to look at Anastasiya as merely an older sister throwing a childish tantrum.

She was nine. Whatever House Belozersky expected her to become one day, right now, she was still a nine-year-old girl being punished because she couldn’t live up to expectations she had never asked for.

"...I’ll talk to Father."

Anastasiya finally lifted her face from his back.

"You will?"

"I will." Ilya turned around and looked at her swollen wrists before carefully taking one of her hands. "I already told you, didn’t I? Once I’m good enough, I’ll ask him to let me succeed him instead."

"But what if he says no?"

"Then I’ll ask again."

"And if he still says no?"

"I’ll keep asking until he gets tired of hearing me."

Anastasiya sniffled.

"...Father doesn’t get tired."

"Then I suppose I’ll have to be more annoying than he is stubborn."

"Pfft—"

That finally earned something resembling a laugh from her.

Anastasiya wiped her eyes with her sleeve before wrapping her arms around him again, this time resting her chin on top of his head.

For all her complaints about being the older sibling, moments like this had become increasingly common between them, with Anastasiya running to Ilya whenever another lesson ended badly and Ilya somehow finding himself responsible for comforting a sister three years older than him.

"My Lady, that is unsightly of you!"

"...!"

Anastasiya immediately flinched.

Her tutor, Miss Ellen, had followed her into the training yard, and the woman approached with a deep frown as she took in the sight of Anastasiya clinging to Ilya.

The disapproval on her face only worsened when she noticed how tightly the girl had wrapped herself around him.

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